


Stupidly Reckless

by space_ally



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fix-It of Sorts, Grandpa Boyfriends, I had to fix this mess okay, M/M, Time Travel, don't touch my boys they deserved better, no Russos, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 18:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18856756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_ally/pseuds/space_ally
Summary: Bucky realized. Steve Rogers did another stupidly reckless thing.OrAvengers Endgame Fix-it because they did my boys dirty





	Stupidly Reckless

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sorry. And still bitter over Steve's Ending.

NEW YORK - 2023

“You’re gonna go back.”

It wasn’t even a question, Bucky didn’t have to ask because he saw it in Steve’s eyes, he saw it the entire time during and after Tony’s funeral and he would have been able to spot it for an even longer period of time if Bruce didn’t ask for a volunteer to take back the stones. 

He would have volunteered right there on the spot, just to make sure Steve would stay out of trouble, if he didn’t beat him to it. Because of course he did. 

“You’re gonna go back, finish up your mission and suddenly something goes wrong and you’ll stay there.”

Steve avoided Bucky’s eyes. 

“No, I get it”, the brunette gave in and Steve lifted his head, clearly surprised. “You do?”, he asked and Bucky nodded, even though he felt his heart break into a million pieces. 

“There’s no closure. You didn’t have the chance to say goodbye. Or even hello for that matter. Ever since you’ve woken up there’s been fight upon fight upon fight. You deserve a break. You deserve a chance to live your life.”

Steve’s smile faltered as he pulled Bucky into a hug. 

“Will you be okay?”, he asked and Bucky buried his face in his shoulder instead of responding to a question he had no answer to. Would he be okay? In a world without his best friend? A world without Steven Grant Rogers?

“It will only be like five seconds, right?” 

Steve nodded and they seperated. 

“I’ll be back in the blink of an eye. You won’t even miss me.”

The blond smiled at his best friend but there was this look on his face again, a steely determination, the kind of face he pulled before he did something stupidly reckless. 

Steve noticed Bucky’s suspicion and quickly pulled him into another hug, “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How could I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

Steve took a deep breath.

“Ready?”, Bruce asked. The blond looked at Bucky and nodded his head. Bucky blinked. Steve was gone. 

“What’s going on? Why isn’t he back yet?”, Sam asked and walked towards Bruce who was hastily checking for any malfunctions. Bucky looked over to a lonely bench facing the sea, almost expecting Steve to turn up there, but nothing. 

“I don’t know what happened, something must have gone wrong, I-”, Bruce stuttered and Bucky realized. Steve Rogers did another stupidly reckless thing. 

SWISS ALPS - 1944

The last stone was back in its place. The last dance with Peggy was danced. Mjölnir was back where it belonged. Steve was done with the mission, now it was time to focus on his own, personal mission. He knocked his past self unconscious and took his place. He knew what was going to happen, knew every minute of that fateful mission by heart. That knowledge was a burden for such a long time but today was the day it became a gift. 

This time, Bucky didn’t get a hold of the shield. He didn’t have to. Steve was there, right in front of him. No one fell. Apart from some Hydra Agents no one got hurt. 

“We have to leave this train”, he said to Bucky, 1944 Bucky with his short hair and charming smile and glimmer of hope still in his eyes. 

“What?”

“You have to trust me on this, please, Buck. I’ll explain it to you. Just... Trust me.”

They exchanged a look and Bucky nodded. 

“Alright. There’s a bridge coming up, it’s not very high but the water will be extremely cold. I want you to stay close to me. Can you do that?” 

Bucky nodded again, no questions asked. Steve suppressed the urge to pull him into a hug. Instead, he took his hand. 

“Okay?”, Steve asked. 

“Okay”, Bucky confirmed. 

No one fell from the train that day. They jumped. They made it out alive. The water was even colder than expected. And Steve couldn’t wait to skip the awkward talk he knew was coming. Bucky had other plans however. 

*

“Why are we betraying our friends again, Steve?”

The small campfire inside of the cave they found shelter in finally lit up and Steve let himself fall on his knees next to it. Bucky sat down hesitantly, not taking his eyes off his best friend. 

“When I tell you, do you promise not to get mad?”

“You do realize telling me not to get mad is the quickest way to make me mad, right?”

Steve sighed. 

“I’m from the future.”

Bucky opened his mouth, shook his head in disbelief and started laughing. It was a stiff laughter, not even reaching his eyes and he stopped when he realized, Steve didn’t join in. 

“You’re not joking”, Bucky said. Steve nodded. 

“I mean it’s not that unlikely considering what we’ve both been through? The serum, Hydra, Red Skull… Time travel is just the next step. Kind of.”

Bucky looked at him as if he lost his mind. 

“If you’re from the future, where’s my Steve?”

Steve’s heart skipped a beat. His. He was his. 

“On the train.”

Bucky got up and ready to leave him right there on the spot but Steve took his arm to stop him.

“He’s- I’m fine. I mean-”, he stumbled over his own words. 

“What happens if he finds out I’m gone?!” Steve let go of Bucky and sighed. 

“I left a note.”

“A note? What kind of note can explain this mess?”

Steve took one of the dry branches left and threw it into the fire. Bucky was still looking at him questioningly.

“He’ll understand. I did it to… To save you.”

The brunette’s expression softened a little. “From what? You need to spit it out, pal, just throwing me random bits of information won’t work.”

Steve gestured Bucky to sit down and he did, waiting for the blond to start talking. 

“This mission was our last mission together. I mean, it would have been, if I didn’t change the timeline. You take a hit and fall from the train, just because I wasn’t there to grab your hand and stop you from falling. You get captured by Hydra however and they turn you into the Winter Soldier. They brainwashed you and hurt you and-”, Steve took a shuddering breath. Bucky patiently waited for him to continue talking. 

“I thought I’d lost you for good. Trying to defeat Red Skull I crashed a plane into the ocean. I woke up 70 years later. It felt like yesterday however. Apparently Hydra was still a thing so of course I tried my best to fight them when suddenly… You appeared. Not really you though. You didn’t remember. But you didn’t finish your mission, you didn’t kill me, you actually saved me. We brought you back. It took a while but we managed to but then Thanos snapped and half the world’s population was gone including you and Sam and we tried so hard to reverse it but nothing worked but Scott and Tony made time travel work somehow and we did reverse the snap but if time travel was a possibility I couldn’t live with the knowledge of you not being okay. I couldn’t. And I guess it’s kind of selfish especially ‘cause I didn’t tell future you the truth but-”

Bucky squeezed Steve’s hand. “Breathe”, he encouraged. 

The blond closed his eyes and took a deep breath, Bucky’s hand in his. He felt the other pull away and opened his eyes in time to receive the slap across the face. He held his cheek, more surprised than hurt and looked at Bucky. 

“That’s for crashing a plane into the ocean and getting yourself in danger.”

He then got pulled into a hug.

“You’re sending me some mixed signals here”, the supersoldier muttered as he felt the hug tighten. 

“We can’t go back, right? It would raise too many questions. This is the end of your military service. And I can’t go back either. It’s time to rest, Stevie.”

NEW YORK - 2023

“Send me after him”, Bucky demanded. Sam shook his head, Bruce took a step back from the control panel. 

“We don’t know where to. Can’t find his signal anywhere”, the doctor explained. 

“Doesn’t matter. I know where. Or when.”

“Bucky, don’t. Steve’s travelled back before, you didn’t. According to Scott sending him back causes enough of a mess already, we can’t-”, Sam tried to reason with him but Bucky interrupted: “I don’t care! He’s supposed to be here! He promised!”

“Just be rational for a minute, Barnes!”, Sam took him by the shoulders, shaking him lightly. 

“I am. Send me back.”

BROOKLYN - 1944

Bucky checked the address again, that was scribbled in his notebook, before he knocked on the wooden door in front of him. Peggy Carter opened, as beautiful as the first time he met her at the bar where she made him feel invisible.

“Sergeant Barnes, wasn’t it? Captain Rogers said you... Died?”, she asked, clearly surprised by his appearance. 

“I’m looking for Steve.”

She sucked in a sharp breath and her expression shifted to a melancholic one. “He’s… Gone. Crashed a plane into-”

He stopped her. “Future Steve. You know what I’m talking about.” 

Peggy took a step back, shaking her head. 

“How do you know about that?”

“He told me. He was going to go back, back to you. But he was also supposed to come back to the future after he lived his life with you. He didn’t. So where is he?”

Peggy avoided Bucky’s look and he suddenly realized, saw it in her posture, her eyes, her behaviour.

“He didn’t stay. He told me about my future husband and my children. About my niece. We had our dance, the one he promised me and then he left. Said he had to take care of something. I’m sorry, I don’t know where he went.”

Bucky nodded. “Thank you.”

Peggy bit her bottom lip. Bucky turned around, ready to leave.

“Barnes?”

He looked back at her. 

“If you get the chance to… Make him quit. The fighting, the missions, being a symbol for America. He’s been Captain America for so long, he deserves to be Steve Rogers again.”

Bucky smiled sadly. 

“I will. After I kick his ass for disappearing. And lying. And reckless behaviour in general.”

SWISS ALPS - 1944

“What is it, Steve?”, Bucky looked at the blond who fiddled with some kind of red liquid. “Something’s not right.”

Bucky took the small container from him.

“You don’t need that anymore, we can just stay here, together.” 

“That’s not it, Buck, it’s for emergencies. And going back someday because I need to tell future you that everything went alright. I’m supposed to come back 5 seconds after I left.”

“Careful, Rogers”, he murmured, pulling him back from the edge of the cliff they were passing on their way back to civilization, “It’s gonna be fine. Can you stop stressing about the weird future device and watch where you’re fucking going please?! You won’t be able to travel back at all if you’re dead.”

It was right after that, a few stones broke off under him and he lost his stand. Steve rushed to grab his hand, but he was too slow. Bucky fell. And he took the last Pym particles with him. There was no going back. 

Steve hung over the edge, arm still stretched out for Bucky to grab but he was gone, vanished in the masses of snow and ice. Steve felt panic rising in his chest. 

“That’s impossible. I saved you. That was not supposed to happen”, he whispered to himself. 

The snow was cold against his stomach and legs but he wasn’t moving, not even when tears started to obstruct his vision. 

He came back to 1944 to save his best friend and once again his life slipped through his hands right then and there. 

He didn’t even have the opportunity to tell him that he loved him. 

Steve felt the cold numbing his legs and the tears freezing on his face. 

Maybe that icy grave was his fate. He let his body go completely numb and felt himself sliding closer to the edge. He closed his eyes as he no longer felt ground underneath him but something stopped his fall. Dark brown hair framed a familiar face, blue eyes filled with determination and a metal arm pulling him back up. 

“Bucky?”, Steve choked out and broke into tears again while Bucky pulled him back up and held him close.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!”, the ex-assassin yelled and took Steve’s face in his hands, worry overshadowing any other emotion he could be expressing right now. 

“But you fell”, the blond stared at him, not able to think clearly, possibly because of hypothermia and the shock. 

Bucky decided to store his anger somewhere else, ignore it, he had to be there for Steve right now. He could yell at him later. And he quite certainly would. For now he took a deep breath and caressed the blond’s cheeks with his thumbs. 

“Past me, Baby, past me. I’m right here”, the brunette whispered and Steve opened his mouth in shock, closed it again and clung to him tighter. 

“I just wanted to make it right again. I wanted to save you. I messed up again. I lost you again. I can’t do anything right I’m useless-” 

“Hey!”, Bucky silenced him and Steve looked at him. 

“I’m right here. And that fall is the reason why. I thought you wanted to be with Peggy? What happened?”

Steve suppressed a sob. “I love you”, he whispered, almost too quiet to be audible. “Why did you leave then?”, Bucky whispered back and the pain in Steve’s eyes broke his heart. 

“Hydra. What they did to you. The torture. All alone”, Steve sobbed and hid his face in Bucky’s chest who pulled him even closer, trying to get rid of the cold that held Steve in its grip. 

They stayed like this for quite a while until Bucky felt Steve’s breath calming down. 

“I’d go through all of it again if it meant being able to spend my life with you”, the brunette finally said, brushing a strand of hair out of Steve’s face, “I love you Stevie. And I don’t want to lose you ever again.”

“I don’t want to lose you either. I’m sorry. I just wanted to save you. From Hydra, from the fighting, the pain…”

“Let’s get back to our own timeline, alright, love?”, Bucky murmured and pressed a kiss to Steve’s cheek. The blond let him, then turned his head, found Bucky’s lips with his. He didn’t feel that cold anymore but that easily could have been the product of over 100 years of anticipation. Bucky didn’t care either way. 

NEW YORK - 2023

Sam Wilson. Captain America. It was big news. 

“He deserves it”, Bucky said and smiled, one arm wrapped around his boyfriend. 

“I thought you two hated each other”, Steve laughed. 

"Can't hate the guy who brought me back Steve Rogers", Bucky murmured and squeezed his shoulder. Steve smiled sadly. 

"What is it?", Bucky asked, already worried again. Steve just shook his head, not looking at the ex-assassin but Sam who was standing a few feet away, admiring the shield. The former Captain had a faraway look in his eyes. 

"Steve", Bucky threatened, letting go of his shoulder. 

"It's just… I'm the reason you fell. Twice. I'm starting to wonder if me being with you puts you in danger. Going back was such a selfish thing to do and-" 

Bucky silenced him with a long kiss followed by a hug. 

"You can try as hard as you want but you're not getting rid of me, Rogers. It's not your fault. Past me had to fall so present me could be with you. I'm pretty sure if you saved me from the fall the second time, there would have been a third, a fourth, hell maybe a fifth fall. No matter what, we'd hopefully end up here. Together. And I wouldn't trade that for the world."

A single tear escaped Steve's eyes as he hid his face in Bucky's hair once again, taking a deep breath, inhaling Bucky's scent. He felt at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the part of the fic where I invite you to comment, leave kudos and/or yell at/with me on twitter (@ajayalive).
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!
> 
> This message has been brought to you by America's Ass(h)


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